IN 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons wrote a book called The Coal Question. In it, he considered a paradoxical fact about technological progress.

One might assume that increases in the efficiency of burning coal would mean that there would be a corresponding reduction in its use because less was needed to achieve the same aims. But as Jevons noted, “it is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

The Jevons Paradox states that increases in efficiency lead to increases in demand. A century-and-a-half later, it remains depressingly relevant.

For example, since the Model T of 1908, car engines have seen an improvement in energy efficiency by a factor of 12. However, over the same period, car engines have increased in power by about the same amount, wiping out the efficiency gain. The mass of cars has also tripled.

So, in the words of scientist Vaclav Smil, “the outlook is for ever-better engines or electric motors in heavy vehicles used in a way that results in the worst weight-to-payload ratios for any mechanised means of personal transportation in history.”

The Jevons Paradox means we must not assume that technological progress will solve the problem of climate change: policy and social change are crucial.

This week, the British government will announce a new natural gas power station that will capture CO2 and store it under the North Sea. Currently, only one such carbon capture station exists in the world, in Canada.

The possible sites are at Keadby in Lincolnshire or Redcar on Teesside. The carbon capture component will double the cost of building the power stations to around £700m, according to figures given to the BBC.

British emissions in 2021 were an estimated 500 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent. Energy supply makes up 20 per cent of the total emissions. The proposed plants would capture at most 2 million tonnes of carbon a year, or about 0.5 per cent of total emissions.

Thinking in terms of the Jevons Paradox, the risk is that even this small offset is used to excuse burning more gas than before but now in a “carbon-neutral” way.

Almost as sizeable as the energy supply is residential energy use, which accounted for 16 per cent of emissions. About 80 per cent of British homes use gas-fired central heating.

In England, there are nearly seven million homes with solid walls. Currently, less than 10 per cent of those have solid insulation. The situation is better for homes with cavity walls: out of 16 million, nearly 70 per cent have cavity insulation — although that means that five million remain without. The third type of important insulation, loft insulation, is only found in about 40 per cent of houses.

It is no secret that the housing stock in Britain is the oldest in Europe — in fact, most likely in the world. Old houses built during the massive expansion of towns and cities in the industrial revolution are still being used as homes today. In 2017, around 20 per cent of English homes failed to meet the “decent homes standard.”

According to the National Insulation Association, a detached home fitted with solid wall insulation would save up to two tonnes of carbon a year. Currently, the estimated cost of fitting this insulation is considerable: something like £15-20,000 for a single home. Clearly, this is not a cost that can be entirely borne by individuals. It is an ideal situation for the government to intervene. 

A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that insulating one million homes in this way would cost around £15 billion. In theory, this should save two million tonnes of carbon — as much as the new carbon capture storage plant, but for at least 15 times the cost.

However, it’s worth pointing out that whereas the emissions “savings” from a carbon capture plant require burning fossil fuels to be realised, the savings from insulation are from genuinely using less fossil fuels.

Furthermore, a mass insulation effort would be a huge project employing thousands of people — it would be, in the best sense, a vast government project made up of a million small and individual changes, rather than a new power plant that leaves the rest of society unchanged. 

But here we also have to consider the Jevons Paradox. If we adequately insulate our homes and increase the efficiency of heating them, in theory, this would reduce the amount we need to spend on heating.

But in practice, many in Britain scrimp and save on heating because of the unaffordable cost: in August 2022, nearly a quarter of British families with children in the house said they planned to keep the heating off all winter.

People are living in desperate poverty. For these people, it is difficult to say that it is wrong for them to increase their energy consumption after insulation and so enjoy a greater level of comfort in their homes.

How can it be fair that those who can afford to heat their home to 25°C all year round are allowed to do so, while others shiver in the cold? It is hard to escape the conclusion that the fairest system is one of energy rationing.

By setting minimum standards for heating homes, the distribution of insulation on the one hand and energy for heating on the other could be evened out.

Such a system would present challenges as well as benefits. Currently, it seems politically impossible. Yet it is a fantasy to believe we can keep burning fossil fuels and magically spirit away the carbon.

Of course, technological improvements to burning fossil fuels seem to be part of the response — not the “solution” — to climate change. But the purpose of the new carbon capture storage plant is mainly to claim that Britain is “world-leading” while many families live in ancient housing stock. They pay extortionate amounts to heat their homes while huge amounts of that heat are immediately lost through empty walls.

Energy generation would be made much easier if we used less energy — much less. If the government were serious about reducing the use of fossil fuels, it would begin the process of insulating British homes in earnest.

But improvements in efficiency or carbon capture are not enough on their own. The Jevons Paradox is not trivial to solve. It means treating energy reduction as a market problem is always extremely dangerous. Without policy for the fair and equitable use of energy, we cannot hope to seriously reduce our energy needs and build a green economy.